Wednesday, June 22, 2011

In the Western cultural context there is a profound loss of faith in our capacity to be, to know, and to trust. I believe this woeful state of affairs is connected to a marginalizing of God and adopting the pretensions of being a capital ‘I’. Suspicion has become absolute and cripples the ability to be deeply committed to anything or anyone. ‘I’ calls the shots and functions as an authority from nowhere, while celebrity, spin, and hype permeate church and society. These capital I’s, are left in a supposed glorious dimension of suspension, floating from one experience to another, snatching at everything, but embracing nothing. Ideas no longer have traction, nor do they matter in this world of make believe. Thankfully, God has set a rescue operation in motion through Jesus Christ, which has the ideological and experiential power to revive and renew being, knowing, and trusting, while it reshapes suspicion and gives a truer and situated self in exchange for the deceptive ‘I.’

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comments:

Dear Greg,Your diagnosis of our current social, spiritual pathologies is so accurate and has hit the nail on the head like a prophetic word. I just read Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) this morning and I thank you for these decisive words of divine wisdom."I" rules indeed like a sovereign, self-deceptive idiot in the West: I can speak for myself, as I've been in deep trouble just because of this "profound loss of faith in our capacity to be, to know, and to trust." I entirely agree with you in that "this woeful state of affairs is connected to a marginalizing of God and adopting the pretensions of being a capital 'I'." I just hope, out of desperate hopelessness, that G-d's "rescue operation" will actually "revive and renew being, knowing, and trusting," and make me whole anew."And they shall fight against you but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you says the Lord, to save you."Yirmiyahu - Jeremiah - Chapter 1